


Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

by Tosa



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6259114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tosa/pseuds/Tosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. White and Mr. Orange take a crack at song analysis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

**Author's Note:**

> just a word of warning, some of the dialogue's a little offensive, but nowhere near tarantino canon
> 
> also, in case you're worried, no, there are no lyrics haphazardly smashed between paragraphs of this fic lmao! but [here's the song itself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu2pVPWGYMQ) if you're curious

"What a stupid fucking question," Mr. White says. You peel your cheek from the window, turning your attention from the dilapidated streets sweeping past to the white leather interior of the car. The color keeps everything from getting overheated, but the glare is something awful. You squint. 

"What's a stupid fucking question?" you ask. Mr. White replies by tapping his finger against the radio. You recognize the song. The band's... Clearwater. Something Clearwater.

"I've always thought this was a stupid fucking question. 'Have you ever seen the rain.' Who the fuck hasn't ever seen the rain?"

You hazard a guess. "Arabs?" 

He makes a face at you. "You don't think it rains out there in the desert? It rains, sometimes. It's a stupid question." 

You don't remember the name of the band, but you remember the acronym. "You got something against CCR?" you ask, and you're smiling. You can't help it. You're gonna make him mad, you just know he's gonna get into a huff, so you smile like the cat that's eaten the canary. Mr. White tosses you a look like he can see the feathers sticking out of your mouth. 

"I don't got nothing against them or the song, I'm just saying, nobody's never seen the fucking rain."

You go back to staring out the window, so he won't see the look on your face. You feel hysterical. Any minute now, you'll be laughing so hard your face will split at its barely perceptible seams. "Maybe we should ask Brown to analyze this." 

Mr. White snorts. "I'm still not over that fucking 'Yesterday' nonsense. George Harrison's rolling in his grave because of that, I'm telling you."

You can't help it. You're laughing. You're trying so hard to hide your face in your hand but you sneak a peek at him and he's smiling. He glances your way now and then, taking his eyes off the road to savor the effects of his wit. He says, "God knows what Brown would do to this song. Make it about... Fucking... Golden showers." 

You've officially lost it. Your howls are punctuated by little noises of amusement from the driver's seat. The sun is baking your face, the light's so bright you're tearing up, your hand trembles, unsure whether to shade your eyes or stifle that goddamn mortifying noise coming out of your mouth. 

Mr. White laughs right along with you - genuine laughs, not pity chuckles. You feel exposed. 

- 

Or so you think, at the time. But that's nothing, really, compared to having his fingers twisted up in your belt buckle. Red blossoms where his fingers probe. You tilt your head back and moan when his lips touch your navel. 

“God,” you whisper, because it feels funny to hold a lie in your mouth at a moment like this. You wonder what his real name is, anticipation boiling under his lips at the realization that there could be only a few more days until you learn it, that is. If you play along with the right plan. 

It would destroy everything you’ve worked for, but - god - maybe it’s time all of that got supplanted. Maybe there’s a future for you beyond precinct promotions. Maybe this whole damn city’s been holding you back and you need to get somewhere - somewhere green. 

White lifts his head to kiss you and you’re surprised by how easily the smile comes. Holdaway told you you’d have to be a method actor! And here you are, barely keeping track of your original role, plunging yourself into another one entirely (or, to be frank, letting it plunge itself into you). 

When the sun hits your tingling limbs, you open your eyes and see tropical birds, tacky flowers, flamboyant patterns strewn across the motel floor. You snort, closing your eyes and letting your head loll back, the warmth of White’s chest against your cheek something like true happiness. It’s a wonder you haven’t been caught. Even your choice of clothes gives you away. 

“What’s so funny?” White mumbles, eyes shut. 

“All this _color_.” Pink and blue and brown. Orange and white. Green and green and green and green. The thought tugs the corner of your mouth like a fishhook, and you snicker. You don’t think White’s even fully awake, but he laughs along with you. Mutters, “Crazy kid.” 

- 

The second time Larry takes your pants off for you, he doesn't reach down to kiss the exposed flesh, though you wish, like the dumb kid you are, that he would. This time there’s a hole all the way down to your guts, so you don’t blame him if a kiss seems unappetizing. Instead he runs his hands soothingly through your hair, streaking it with your own blood. 

He's calm, now, but you wonder what kind of confession would escape him in those same drowsy, early hours where he’d suggested the possibility of a second rendezvous, meant only for you and him. You wonder if he'd reenact his guilty moments in his sleep, like that Shakespearean broad, what was it, Macbeth? His hands are certainly drenched deeply enough in your blood that it’ll be a pain to wash, _out, damn spot -_  

Larry’s face superimposed on your ninth grade English teacher’s makes you giddy so you laugh, raucously enough to make your stomach seer, and tell him you're going to die. 

Larry insists it'll take days, but it doesn't. In the span of an hour, he's nursing a wound to match yours. Yet he still wastes his strength curling up beside you. Gazing down at you, grinning, like there’s no place he’d rather be.

You barely passed ninth grade English. Ironically, the subtext kept tripping you up. 

Larry somehow manages to smile when he says, “I think we're going to do a little time,” finding humor even now, in a warehouse full of corpses. Red and red and red and red. It doesn’t make for much of a rainbow. He’s looking at you, something welling up in his eyes, something like relief, and it makes you so sick you have to look away.

But you see what he sees: a future. Any future. Maybe not a green one, maybe not one with diamonds sparkling beneath the floorboards, but a future. Ironically, it’s his hand around your wrist that feels like a shackle of skin and bone, so you squeeze back to make the metaphor more apt. 

Just outside the door, sirens scream hellishly and without any of the grace of their namesake, and it’s all your fault he’s going to throw himself to them. You’ve strung him along, all this time, and now it’s your fault he’s giving up so easy. You’ve let him think that living like an animal in a fucking cage won’t be so lonely, because you’ve let him think there’s a chance you two are going to endure it together. 

Guilt eats at the festering corners of your gut. Larry’s smiling down at you, unaware of the storm still ahead. To think of him skulking those industrial grey tombs, to think of him living out the rest of his life hating you and mourning you with every fiber of his being makes you so sick your body shudders down to its bleeding core. Erasing this sickness won’t do - it needs to be annihilated. Obliterated. Scattered amongst the fragments of your empty skull. It’s time you pay Larry back for every ounce of agency you’ve taken from him, and you’re willing to give him a pound of flesh as interest, carve it out yourself if you have to, cup the dripping thing in your hands and present it like a macabre promise ring. You reach up to hold him, to brace him, for what you’re about to say. 

The cold metal pressed against your cheek feels something like freedom. Whose, you’re not sure.

-

"Anyway," you say, chest still heaving with laughter, "you gotta listen to the _whole song._ It's not just 'have you ever seen the rain' - it's, 'have you ever seen the rain _coming down on a sunny day._ ' It's about a fucking beautiful sight, my friend."

Mr. White's mouth twists up. "This whole fucking time," he says, "it was about rainbows? Who the hell hasn't ever seen a rainbow?"

"Not just rainbows. Sun showers. And... Look, it's a metaphor, probably. There's other stuff in there, I'm sure."

"Whatever you say, kid."

You turn back to the window and watch the ghost of your smirk fade into the industrial grey of passing buildings. A thrum that reverberates out from your chest joins the thrum of the engine and spreads across your skin. You're vibrating so hard, you're going to come apart. A trillion radioactive particles. Bruce Banner all hulked out and ready, now, to suffuse into a nervous mass of nothing, spread as thin as air.

Okay, so you're about as much of a scientist as you are a poet. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out an object can survive only so many beatings before it falls apart.

Your leg is going a mile a minute, so White says, “Hey, cool it,” reaches over so that his broad palm’s swallowing your leg. “What, you got fleas? You're making me nervous.” The heat of his flesh seems to burn through your jeans, and you imagine that despite the barrier, you can feel the texture of his skin: the calluses, the scars, the lifeline that stretches, unbroken.

Your leg shudders to a stop. Maybe to suppress your nerves, or maybe to suppress a noise, you shove your hand into your mouth and bite your knuckles hard enough to draw blood. 

Even when you've calmed down, White doesn't pull his hand away. By the time the last strains of the song have been swallowed up by infomercials, you're feeling bold enough to lay yours on top of his.

"You really gonna run away with me?" you ask him. "When it's all over?"

When you lift your eyes, his returning gaze is soft. You hold it only for a moment before you both look away, self-conscious. 

"Of course I am," he replies. His fingers entwine with yours. "What a stupid fucking question."

**Author's Note:**

> wow!! that was a lot of metaphors smashed together in a really small place!!! can you get fined for that?


End file.
